It's the first day of the month again... time for some group inspiration from the Papertrey Ink Sr. Design Team! We have been asked this month to revisit another fun oldie but goody set... Little Lady!
I thought I would create some projects using a spectrum ink pad and share a few tricks that I do to create a seamless image.
Here's a little ladybug thank you. I use the spectrum pad for all but the black stamped images. Three stamps in total.
Here is the best tip I can give you. Are you ready?
Here is what the spectrum pad I used looks like.
(I used the shades of Red pad)
Each felt portion is a different color. It's very common to get horrible lines when using a spectrum pad. The seams from the pad show up as blank lines on your stamped image.
Yuck huh. But in reality... there is a technique to use when spectrum stamping so that this doesn't happen!
Here is what I do.
- I make sure that I've conditioned my stamp. I almost always use a earaser over the surface of all my large solid images... or lightly sand with fine grint sand paper. This takes of the little production film that left on the images. (I never do this with small or line images, there is no need.)
- I stamp the image a few times on scratch paper to get a feel of the pressure I need for a good solid image. Using a think foam pad under the paper helps too.
- Most important step... I ink my image up and down on my spectrum pad in quick (think staccato) movements, then I add side to side movement while inking. So, up and down while moving side to side in sharp, quick tapping movements while slightly overlapping the seams of each felt section. The object is to create more of a blended feel in the ink on your stamp.
You can see that on these images. The colors blend into each other without any obnoxious seam lines. Smooth and gradient!
The lady bug is from Little Lady, the sentiment is from Giga Guide Lines and the strip is from Distressed stripes. One spectrum ink pad was used for all three images.
I made some cute little note books and magnets using this same technique for some ladies that I Visit Teach for my church each month. The sentiment is from theTake Note set.
Simple, mass producible and fun!
You can see how cute that little ladybug is on these too. We get all sorts of colors of them here... all in the red to yellow range.
I did a few little changes to each pad to individualize them a bit.
Here are the little magnets. (I've edited out our phone numbers of course. *smile*)
I just printed the words onto cardstock then die cut them. After that it was a cinch to die cut some extra magnet sheet and adhere them together. A Little bling will bring it to there attention while it's on their fridge to help them think to call us if they need anything... or just to chat!
Well, I hope you've enjoyed my revisit to the Little Lady stamp set. I love this set and am so glad we got an opportunity to dust it off!
Here are the other Papertrey Ink Sr. DT blogs... get ready to be inspired!
Thanks for poppying by friends!
- Stamps- Little Lady, Giga Guide Lines, Distressed stripes.
- Ink- Marvy Spectrum Shades of red Pad, True Black
- Paper- Orange Zest, Pure Poppy, White
- Other-Harvest Gold button, Button Jute, Small scalloped border die, corner rounder
- Stamps- Little Lady, Take Note
- Ink- Marvy Spectrum Shades of red Pad, True Black
- Paper- True Black, Pure Poppy, White
- Other-True Black button, Bakers twine, Med. scalloped border die, corner rounder, Orange Zest bitty dots ribbon.
